


Sacrifice

by airdeari



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 18:58:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10703091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari
Summary: With a casual flip of her wrist that jingled her glittering bracelets, she pointed at Junpei. She made two other gestures, but Junpei was too stunned to follow her finger and find whom else she had picked.“We’ll choose from those three,” she said. “Ace, Junpei, and June.”





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> that relatable feel when you do math and then have to write a fic in the next three hours. have a fun "what if ace waited like two seconds before Being A Hero and allowed more tension to build" thinkpiece

Lotus let out a giggle that rang out in the cold walls of the hospital. “The motion carries,” she said with sick delight.

Junpei did not yet know why her eyes were fixed on him when she turned around and stepped back towards the rest of the group, her heels clicking along the tile on the floor. He was still trying to work his way through every possible combination of digital roots in groups of three and four, waiting for one to click into place with a solution. He was running out of combinations. His throat felt dry, and his blood felt cold.

“Now,” said Lotus, “let’s start a vote to decide who to sacrifice.”

With a casual flip of her wrist that jingled her glittering bracelets, she pointed at Junpei. She made two other gestures, but Junpei was too stunned to follow her finger and find whom else she had picked.

“We’ll choose from those three,” she said. “Ace, Junpei, and June. Would anyone care to make an argument for who we should leave behind?”

Junpei whirled around to face June. Her eyes had gone wide, and her face looked white. Frantic, he whipped his head around the room, at all the others staring at him with judging eyes.

“Wait, wait, wait!” he shouted. “Why—why _us_? Why not…”

Lotus rolled her eyes. “The digital roots,” she explained. “Let’s put it this way. If we’re supposed to go through two of those doors, then the total digital root of the people going into those doors, should be the same as the digital root of those two doors added together. Right?”

Junpei stared at the far wall. After four hours in this twisted game, the math was already doing itself. 3 plus 7 was 10—digital root of [1]. 3 plus 8 was 11—digital root of [2]. 7 plus 8 was 15—digital root of [6].

“We can figure out whether we’ll be able to go through those doors by taking the digital root of the whole group,” Lotus went on. “Right now, we have 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The digital root of all of those together is [7]. With me so far?”

Junpei did not respond. Lotus did not seem to care.

“So, we have to get the total digital root of our group to be either 1, 2, or 6 if we want to go through two doors,” she said. “Going from 7 to 6 means we have to subtract 1, or sacrifice Ace. Going down to 2 means we have to subtract 5—that’s you, Junpei. And if we want a digital root of 1…”

 Junpei was shouting “No!” before he even realized he had opened his mouth. His face was hot. He looked at June.

“You can’t,” he stammered, “we can’t… we can’t leave June behind. We can’t. She’s not—we’re not voting for her. Nobody votes for her, okay?!”

Santa gave him a funny frown. “You know that just makes it more likely we’re gonna vote for you, right?” he pointed out.

Junpei felt like his heart was pounding from inside his stomach. His whole body was pulsing, his vision blurring as he stared at June. The eyes were on him. If they did not sacrifice June, they would sacrifice him.

His eyes came up to Ace, full of ugly hope and guilt. He was Junpei’s only chance of saving both June and himself. When Junpei blinked and his vision cleared for a second, he saw the fine lines forming around Ace’s wry smile, as if he knew what Junpei was thinking, and forgave him for it.

If he went back on what he had just said—if they split the vote between the three of them—maybe it would take some of the votes off of his own head, and pin them on June, instead, and then maybe Ace would have the most votes in the end.

“I don’t think it’s fair for you to decide who we get to vote for, anyway,” Lotus said, folding her arms. “I’d like to vote for June.”

June gave a little gasp.

“No offense, of course,” Lotus said with a shrug. “We’ve got to pick someone. And, well, with your fever acting up all the time…”

Junpei had never felt anger so _cold_ before. And June just nodded, slowly and solemnly.

“Yeah, no offense for all of this, right?” Santa said, raising his hand and stepping forward. “Sorry Junpei, I was gonna vote you either way. Just gotta pick.”

“Seven, what do you think?” Lotus asked casually, turning her head up to him.

Seven’s eyes flicked among the three choices, his face twisted with the anguish of the moral dilemma before him. His lips twitched in and out of a grimace that showed his crooked teeth, but he said nothing.

“Well, anyone else can make a decision,” Lotus said with a shrug. “Clover? Or any of you three. You can still vote, of course. It wouldn’t be fair if you couldn’t.”

“I… I vote for myself.”

Her voice was soft and breathy, but they all heard her. Santa’s eyes went wide. Lotus cocked an eyebrow in intrigue. Junpei…

“No! _No!_ You _can’t_!” he yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders. “June, no—no, you’re coming—you’re going with—you’re gonna keep going, okay?! You can’t stay behind!”

“That’s not for you to decide, Junpei,” Lotus snapped. “June, are you volunteering to sacrifice yourself?”

His heart was racing. He could not tell if the ship was rocking, or if he had just lost his equilibrium, but the room felt like it was spinning either way. There was only one way to stop this, even if it made his stomach sink. The alternative was too dangerous. With numb, barely moving lips, he mumbled, “I’ll—”

“No. _I_ will stay behind.”

Ace’s low voice stopped any more words from coming out of Junpei’s mouth.

“Let’s not allow this to proceed any further, shall we?” he said sternly, shoulders back, hands in his pockets. “This deliberation will only bring about the worst in us. You all need to work together as a team to escape, but this voting is pitting you against each other. For the sake of your success, I sacrifice myself.”

June was so pure of heart. She argued with him. She protested that there had to be another way forward, a way to save everyone. On the other hand, Junpei felt himself with a floating, weightless feeling, almost tingling inside with relief that he and June could survive, even if it were only by stepping over the life of another man. He remembered thinking to himself then, _what has this game done to me?_

And there was so much more it had left to do.


End file.
